*The Great Chain of Being

*Elizabethan World View – the

basics

*During Elizabethan times, people believed that everyone and everything was arranged in a certain order – a hierarchy

*It was this order, known as the Great Chain of Being, that was threatened by new and exciting discoveries in science and astronomy.

*Basic Chain of Being

*GOD*ANGELIC BEINGS*HUMANITY*ANIMALS*PLANTS*MINERALS

*According to this idea, everything in the world had its position fixed by God:*The Earth was the centre of the universe and the stars

moved around it in fixed routes.  *In Heaven God ruled over the archangels and angels.  *On earth there was order everywhere. Society reflected this

order with its fixed classes from the highest to the lowest – kings, churchmen, nobles, merchants, and peasants. *The animals had their own order too, the lion being the

“king”.  *Plant life and minerals also reflected this order. 

Among the trees, the most superior was the oak; among flowers, it was the rose. *Among the minerals, gold was the

most superior.

CherubsArchangels, Angels

Star controllers of DestinyMoon

KingChurchPrincesNobles

ManLion

Other AnimalsOak and RoseOther Plants

GoldOther Minerals

GodOu

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cha

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Noth

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chao

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*The Chain of Being served to create social stability – everyone knew their place on the chain and interacted with the other levels:

*The people higher up on the chain were responsible to provide for or care/protect those below them

*The people lower down had a responsibility to obey and serve those above them

*The Chain of Being World View created the beliefs and values for individuals and the society of Shakespeare’s time*The chain was a transactional sort of system – “I do this

for you if you do this for me”

*If someone in the chain doesn’t fulfill their responsibility they are considered to be ‘breaking the chain’

*Any attempt to break the Chain of Being would upset the established order and bring about universal disorder

*The Chain of Being represents the social order of the time.

*Anything that is outside the chain is considered to be chaos/nothingness/madness/evil.

*Therefore, if the chain is broken, the order in the world is broken, and it can descend into chaos.

*Nothingness, chaos, madness, evil – all of these things are outside the chain and are not considered to be made by God.

*It is essential that you understand the Chain of Being world view in order to understand the play Macbeth

*Everything within the chain is created by God. *Therefore everything within the chain is good.*Therefore there is no evil in the chain. *As evil doesn’t exist within the chain, it can only enter if the chain is broken.

*The Divine Right of Kings

*It was believed that the King was divinely chosen by God.*As God’s chosen representative on earth, the King

was the supreme upholder of order on earth. *If his position was violated it would destroy the

perfect order in the universe and bring strife and chaos to the world. *Any act of treason or treachery against the King was

considered indirectly to be a mortal sin against God.  The penalty was death.

*Macbeth and the Chain of Being

*The Witches

*In the opening scenes we are introduced to the characters of the witches. *In Shakespeare’s time witches and witchcraft were believed to be evil – they were associated with the dark and death.*Witches were considered to be the agents of Satan, doing his business.*Witches were believed to be able to see into the future; that they could create storms, hail, thunder and lightning; that they could sink ships; dry up springs; stop the sun and change night into day and day into night.

*As the witches are introduced in the opening scene, Shakespeare’s audience are immediately aware that the Chain of Being has been disrupted, as evil is present. *Shakespeare uses this as a device to get the audience involved in the play – remember, they believe in the Chain of Being world view, and so the witches are a sign to them that something is wrong.*The audience then looks for why the chain has been broken.*“When shall we three meet again?In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”(Act 1, scene 1)

*King Duncan’s Murder

*King Duncan is murdered – remember this is considered an act against God.

*As soon as the audience knows Macbeth has killed the King, they also know that he will ultimately fall, as the punishment for killing a king was death.

*Shakespeare reinforces the Chain of Being world view by ensuring Macbethis punished at the end of the play.

*Within the Chain of Being, within the hierarchy of men, there is another hierarchy:*Men*Women*Children

*Do you think Lady Macbeth and Macbeth stay within their roles in the Great Chain of Being???

*Lady Macbeth

*Consider Lady Macbeth at the start of the play – she shows masculine traits such as a hunger for power, strength, ambition, a ruthlessness and forcefulness. She is assertive and decisive

*This upsets the chain in the sense that she isn’t fulfilling her proper role as a wife and woman (and mother):

*“I… know how tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.” (Act 1, scene 7)

*Lady Macbeth

*Also consider Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 1 scene 5, where she deliberately calls upon the power of evil to help her:

*“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty” (Act 1, scene 5)

*This disrupts the chain again as Lady Macbeth asks for chaos so she can become ‘a man’ (or at least not a woman) to take charge of the situation. This creates a role reversal between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth – which can only come about in a world of chaos where the chain is broken

*Macbeth

*Now consider Macbeth at the start of the play – he is weak and shows nurturing, feminine qualities, such as when he has doubts about killing King Duncan:

*“I’m afraid to think what I have done … to know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself” (Act 2, scene 2)

*This upsets the Chain of Being as Macbeth is not fulfilling his role as a ‘man’ as he is not the strong, ambitious person his wife is and wants him to be (at least not yet) and she is the dominant, powerful person in their relationship